What is good journalism (compared to bad journalism)?

I am not happy about the current state of journalism. Everyone seems to be rushing to print, and blurring the story to make the headline bigger.
I do like Rachael Maddow. I do like Bob Woodward.

The difference is that good journalism doesn’t exist, and bad journalism does.

“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.” -hunter s.

Generally think The New York Times represents the best journalism. When they make mistakes, they will usually point them out. Unfortunately, the 24/7 internet news cycle makes verification much harder – as admitted by them in today’s “Public Editor” column. I also like NPR for radio news.

good jounalism – the economist, bbc usually, cnbc.
bad – the rest esp fox, cnn

@janbb – WaPo is better

I consider good journalism as news with no bias that has been researched well and verified; if mistakes are made, they make corrections ASAP and not when they are caught. There isn’t too many papers or networks that practice good journalism. WaPo is one of the ones I respect, along with Fox News (I suspect the hatred of the network comes from the dislike of O’Reilly and Hannity; the rest of their coverage is pretty good).

Step one: not being owned by a corporation.

That’s basically all I’ve figured out for certain.

The work of John Pilger is very much in the ”..good journalism. ” camp.
Imho.

Good journalism is a thoughtful combination of objective substance cast in a matrix of subjectively attractive form (language, imagery, or both).

Looked up this Pilger guy on Wikipedia…looks like he’s a lib. No thanks.

@cletrans2col: so being a lib is somehow mutually exclusive from being a good journalist? i fail to follow.

I like balanced journalism. Journalism is kind of an umbrella term at this point I think, covering impartial journalists and biased ones. I don’t really know the technical definition. I like a journalist to present different points of view, and let the reader decide. Kind of stay at arms length, investigative and objective. I am fine with biased journalism as long it is undersood the journalist comes with a bias. Recently Olbermann was suspended from NBC because he gave money to the Democrats, and their news journalists are not allowed to contribute to campaigns. His response was more or less, that he did not know he was a journalist. I can see his point. He is not a neutral reporter.

I like the New York Times. Also, for politics, Morning Joe on MSNBC has people who openly admit their bias, but has fair and long discussions on topics, with opinions on both sides. Meet the Press also allows for differing opinions ad discussion.

Pilger is one of the biggest critics of Obama right now. And (brace yourself) he actually uses logic and facts to do so instead of tired and cliched rhetoric and thinly veiled racism.

good journalism – reporting: to relate, as what has been learned by observation or investigation with as little personal bias as possible, especially if it is original

mediocre journalism – aggregating news sources and adding opinion

bad journalism – selectively emphasizing points because of a hidden agenda, misrepresenting facts, name calling, logical fallacies, speculation

Good journalism: reports facts and truth. Gives context and history along with lists facts. Serves as an information filter and focuses on the most relevant and important issues.

Bad journalism: reports opinion. The opinion may be the bias of the reporter. Or, it may be (and often is) two varying opinions of interview subjects, as in “This politician says X, while this other politician says Y, and this scientist says Z… who is speaking the truth? You decide!” Warps context to fit a biased narrative. Focuses on unimportant, but profitable, subjects like Kim Kardashian, political gossip, etc.